Irish Examiner View: Time for debate on thorny issues of assisted dying and euthanasia

Assisted dying has been legal in Switzerland since the 1940s, while euthanasia is legal in Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Spain. 

A medicine bottle at the Dignitas Clinic in Switzerland, which carries out assisted dying procedures. Picture: PA.

Much in the same way as we here in Ireland have a Citizens’ Assembly to discuss and consider important legal and policy reform matters, the French government is set to take the advice of a ‘citizens’ convention’ on one particularly thorny and controversial issue.

While various Irish iterations of such a body have considered such contentious matters as the repeal of the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution and gender equality, and will this year look into drug use, the one in France was asked to look at whether euthanasia or assisted dying should be permitted in the country.